While the present invention has many and varied uses in separating mutually immiscible liquids, it is described herein in connection with the removal of oil from the surface of a body of water. However, the invention is not so limited and the appended claims should not be so construed.
Although skimming devices have been widely known and used for many years, with the growing need for better control and removal of liquid pollutants from streams, rivers and other water bodies, it has become increasingly important to provide less costly oil skimmers so as to enable a greater and more widespread use of such equipment.
The prior art skimming devices have in general utilized a motor driven member such as a drum, a disc or a belt which adsorbs a floating liquid such as oil and transports it to a collection area. The prior art devices have been designed to be highly efficient and as a consequence have been relatively complex and expensive to manufacture. Such devices have not, therefore, found application where only relatively small quantities of oil are to be collected. For example, one application where present day oil skimmers are uneconomical is in machine shops wherein acqueous cooling liquids are contaminated by oil and should not, therefore, be discarded into a sewer. In such applications the time required to separate the oil from the liquid on which it is floating is not an important factor inasmuch as the separation need only be carried out on intermittent batch bases.